


Teaser: Stand Up

by ParadoxR



Series: Hit the Sky [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Military, Season/Series 01, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where the heck did Hammond find you, Captain? ...If what he does is build people, Jack O'Neill has a heck of a job on his hands. Complete story, missing-scene style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Recover

**Author's Note:**

> I've actually dropped you in the middle of this series, which is meant to explore both the Sam/Jack slow burn and the gauntlet of challenges in actually standing up the SGC and SG-1. Will stay roughly canon, though I might "improve" some, notably there's no way Teal'c speaks English.
> 
> Cursing (up to F-word). No spoilers, but some allusions. After "Emancipation".

“Recover!” He barks before she’s even hit the ground again.

Sam staggers up immediately, not quite leaning against the ropes of the drill deck's boxing ring. Jack forces his gaze to sweep away from her exhausted form, huffing and puffing with little enough situational awareness to catch that he is too.

But enough to catch the forward thrust of his snazzy electro-training knife. _Damnit, Captain_ , Jack curses again as he cuts out and throws a round punch. Technically it’s her snazzy electro-shock knife.

_Gruh._ He shakes the fog inwardly—her block would’ve kept a lesser man on the floor, and even with him she’s barely hit her own knees before “Recover!”

He floors her one more time for good measure before pulling a zat. Her re-risen form bounces lightly, recalculating. _Better. ..._ Better even than 21 hours ago.

It's been a hell of an assessment process.

But that's his maybe-2IC, somehow still at it: drenched in sweat in an outfit he shouldn’t let her wear anymore, hair plastered to her face and fire solid in her eyes. Whoever used to beat the shit out of this kid, he's going to find them and kill them.

“Take a knee, Captain.” Not that he deludes himself such a murder would be easy, not with that hell they’d put in her gaze. Not with the way he hadn’t forced a single protest out of her in three 18-hour days of this. And definitely not, since checking off MCMAP [Marine Corpse Martial Arts] Green Belt wasn’t something you did in that time, even from AF Level III.

Sam lands on that knee harder than she intends, and he stares down at her before realizing against it. _Definitely, midweight shirts._

She’s still locked in. “Why are you still doing this?”

“Because you’re still training me to, Sir.”

He doesn’t suppress the feigned huff at her report. “You’re still a scientist, Carter. You don’t need this crucible to make you good at your job.” _I don’t want this life for you._ …But of course, he knows he does. Hell, he'd fought tooth and nail for the chance to train his people, and as well as he plays the fool under his silver eagles, she's his best shot. Unless someone can point him to another Gate-expert, techno-troubleshooting genius that still saw fit to _show up_ here as a Level III Advanced CQC, SERE-C survival qual'd, M9 pistol expert, varsity uneven bars (USAFA gymnast—don't tell her he knows that), high-G astronaut qualifier, fast-burn OPRs [Performance Reviews], perpetual ‘Company Grade Officer of the Quarter’ …and capable of handling _him_ self like her in combat.

"My job is your Second, Sir."

"Is it, Captain?" He voices, channeling the practiced antagonization of his own military training instructors.

His eyes look through her shirt to the malevolent, alien welts on her back. No, why ever she took this route, he wouldn’t find another. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make him any more eager to throw her into a war that would never treat her any less unfairly. _Where the hell did Hammond find you, Captain?_

“Heretofore, Sir.” She doesn’t fight him, used to this line of testing and dissuasion after almost 54 hours straight. _Or rather, she won’t provoke, in spite of you at her for 54 hours. _She’d lost her temper twice in that time—twice too many, but less than usual. _She’ll be ready for Sapper Leader Course by January._ He’s still never heard her curse. Probably the only thing she’s missing, he gawfs internally.

Jack sighs with limited melodrama. This really is happening, apparently.

“What have we learned, Captain?”

“Never slack. Don’t land everything. Know what you need. Don’t slug a slugger. Quick isn’t too fast. Speed is economy of motion.” He imagines the slight smile that quirks at that one; turns out catching her off-guard is one of his preferred reasons to be profound.

It’s a nice smile. _Shut up, Jack._

“…Force exposure, don’t wait for it. Use your strengths. Accelerate. Don’t be dumb.” She’d earned that one. “There’s no good day to die. Never be too beat to roll. Never screw up your attitude technique.” He smiles invisibly as she continues the disciplined recall.

_*****_

_His heel hits the mat where her breastbone had been half a second earlier. "AGAIN!"_

_The voice collides with her eardrum and she almost tells him where to shove it, whether because its hour 14 of day 2 or because he refuses to wipe that damned (fake, Sam, it's fake) smirk off his face._

_She jumps back into stance and shifts her weight. He might have the height, mass and experience on her, but she should still be enough of a gymnast to nail a jumping high kick._

_He floors her again._

_“This is your personal "attitude technique", Captain. The point is to not fuck it up.” _

_*****_

“...Know when you need to be three steps ahead, even if it requires skipping one. Don’t outthink your reflexes. Never get pissed when you screw up your attitude technique. You’re never done. Know your ground. Find their range. Fake yours. Nothing is mostly physical.” _You really shouldn’t have put it that way to her._ Carter's stomach growls loudly as she forces her quick stray glance away from his lunch. 2 MREs in 63 hours was one thing, but watching him eat really sucked.  _He's just training you, Sam._ Well, testing, because apparently she needed more of that.

“And don’t overestimate your opponent.”

“And don’t” she barely pauses “overestimate your opponent, Sir.” He nods: she'd successfully cut the question from her voice.  _I'd still love to play poker against you though, Captain._

“I’m beat, Captain.” Her eyebrows rise as if to give her eyes room to see him, morphing from trainer to CO. “Know how to sense enemy failure modes.” She almost nods— “Recover!”

Sam bounces to her feet, biting down on almost delusional exhaustion. With that many close-quarters-combat lessons ringing in her head, she’d give anything for a minute to actually process one.

_You think too much._

“Go shoot expert.” She stumbles the response a little and leaves before the dismissal.

 

Jack sighs to her back. _16 days._

16 days to prep a single squadron to fight a galactic war.  _You better be deadeyeing that P90, Captain..._ Hell, after what he went through to win the "train first, die less" argument for the SGC, _you better be the best that's ever been_.

 

The thing is, he realizes as he races after her undaunted form...she just might be.

 

 


	2. You're Done

_“Go shoot expert.”_

“Pistol or rifle, Sir?” _You did not just say that._ She kicks herself internally and almost falls down.

His eyebrow answers angrily. _Tired of doing both already, Captain?_...Not that he wasn't. “On the crawls. Beat me.” She tries to process his feigned anger but finds herself two levels up the ladder before she realizes anything. _Did he dismiss you?_

She surfaces four levels up, eyes too slow to readjust to the light. “What the hell is wrong with you, Captain?!” He’s at her again during prep. Not that she minds nonsensical yelling, but she hates the tears in her eyes even if she knows they'll never fall.

They make it damn difficult to shoot.

She nails pistol again but comes up as sharpshooter on rifle. _Pathetic on a scaled target course, Captain._ The yelling’s starting to fray her again, and every muscle in her body still aches from this morning.

_***_

_“Level 19!” She’s basically sliding down the ladders now, which does nothing for her aching muscles as Level 19 breaks her fall._ _She’s 20 feet from her lab before—he slips behind her, aiming for her knees as she jumps, overbalanced but escaping. Her ear rings as he throws her against the cool concrete, but he’s too easy letting her out. The technicians in the corridor don't bother to look shocked as she bolts after him, barely fumbling with the keycard to her lab._

_It’s anger when she reaches him again, maybe. Anger that he doesn’t want her here, doesn’t trust her. Anger that Daniel doesn’t get this gauntlet. Anger that saving their asses before training started isn't worth squat. Anger at doing twice as much to get half as little. Anger that keeps her on her feet._

_“Hit the sack, Captain.”_

_She blinks._

_He’s gone._

_She decides in that sort of too-quick decisiveness that it was quite a good order after two 18-hour "smoke" sessions from a Black Ops snake eater._

_“Wake the hell up, Doctor!”_

_She bolts to the sound dizzily, registering the trick a beat late. “Reports as ordered, Sir!” A pack of something hits her square in the stomach; she barely keeps her feet. It’s not until the stair-run topside that she realizes there actually had been some sleep in between._

_“Good Morning, Major!”_

_“Good Morning, Colonel!”_

_“What time is it, Captain?”_

_“0215, Sir!”_

_“So?!”_

_“Good Morning, Colonel!” She tries to keep the curse from her voice. The answer's not going to change, Colonel. ...She pulled Superintendent’s List 6 semesters in a row as USAFA; she knows her freaking greetings of the day._

_It’s something like a four mile ruck-run to the mountain—the pack was climbing gear, apparently. Not her specialty, which was assuredly the point._

_Damn good point._

_She knows she’s got a chip on her shoulder (for a damn good reason — there can’t be a good reason — shutup) but, damn, do those three like kicking it._

_***_

_Where are you?_

Something collides with her cheek; she grabs and twists without thinking.

“CAPTAIN CARTER!”

Blink- _shit_. “Yes, Sir!”  _You did not just physically engage him on a live range._

“DO YOU THINK?”

Beat. “Range safety violation, Sir.” And it absolutely was, despite the fact that he just could’ve dislocated her jaw and she’d already cleared both weapons and it’s 2220 on Friday and no one’s here. _He’s right. You’re not good enough. Y_ _ou’re going to get something killed._

_And knowing your luck, it won’t be you._

“NO. SHIT.”

She’s already released him. “Get your ass on the drill deck, Captain.” Disappointment?

He smokes her one last time on the drill deck until her hand finally fails on the gym bars. _Why weren't you a gymnast in grad school?_

“We’re done.”

Her eyebrows wake up. _Done as in, ‘done’?_ “You’ve got a long way to go if you actually want this job, Captain, and I’m done pouring all my time into it.” Sam struggles to freeze the fire, keeping it in her eyes.

He looks back at those eyes before thinking better of it. _This is your job, Jack-ass. Build your people._

“Hit the showers, Captain.” _Stop it, Jack._ “You’re done.”

 

If what he does is build people, he has a heck of a job on his hands.


	3. Who We Train Hardest

_If what he does is build people, he has a heck of a job on his hands._

He watches as she hops the ropes with forced ease and jogs her six to the showers. _Stop it, Jack._ …Studiously acknowledging every officer without conceding ridiculous number of guys crowded into the drill deck at almost 2230.

“I want that AAR by 0700.” His voice cuts to her, too demanding. _Because you actually need an After Action Report for this crap._  She pivots a ‘Yes, Sir!’ before following his renewed dismissal.

He tears his eyes back to his watch. This much of a Jackass, they probably don’t pay him for. But damned if she just refused to complain. The woman did not stop. _Stop it, Jackass._ Even when she should. It would become a problem.

Lou interrupts his eyes, which is probably for the best. “Needed a punching bag?”

Jack sighs, three days of exhaustion finally seeping through. “She needs it.” And didn’t she. If a leader’s job is to make himself obsolete… he worries even two geniuses and a five-star alien general could take longer than his old bones would last. Which is saying something for the fate of everyone else.

“Oh, come on. Why? I don't see you beating the stuffing out of Daniel for 60-some odd hours.” Jack finishes the last bite of his ineffectively taunting lunch (dinner) before joining them and Teal'c on the ground. Of course, he’d let her burn a good chunk of those hours without expending too many calories himself, but the others had still served to remind him of retirement.

Lou throws a fake punch at the diplomat, who pushes his glasses up in response. Jack sighs authoritatively. _Now there’s a hard case_. One it seems he’ll have to address on-the-job. And Lou’s perpetual smile or not, they all know how safe that is. _Remind me never to complain about an instructor tour again._ …Not that he anticipates anything non-expeditionary again.

It takes a good bit of effort to stem the exhaustion of that thought into a mischievous glint at Daniel. The smart kid skirts away, but doesn’t hesitate when it comes to Carter. “Come on Jack, Sam's doing incredible.” He means it, and grabs his eyes more meaningfully. “She doesn’t deserve this.” _Oh, Doctor, you have no idea._

Ferretti’s own knowing smirk tags him from the earnestness. _Shut up, Lou._ Jack O’Neill’s no idiot. There’s barely a guy here that’d mind sweating her like that.Which was a problem. He needs a real trainer.

And for other reasons.

 

Teal’c pulls Jack’s eyes in the way only he manages to. Jack shares the subsurface smile. They, at least, were going to be good. _Glad you agree._ …Which is, well, good, because he hadn’t exactly expected commanding an alien five-star 50ish years his senior to be amiable. Much less having him acknowledge—

“Dis’tra nel shaak kin’dra remoc chel’til satak.”

…Sure, that. Jack smiles with a final burst of energy before following Sam to the showers and bed. _Goddamnit, stop doing that._

“Couldn't have said it better myself, buddy.” He tosses backwards before stopping more candidly. “Whatda you think?”

The elder commander understands, tilting his ear and narrowing his eyes slightly before returning the nod. _Have faith._

Still, it’s a mess not waiting to happen.


	4. Kick Me

She’s at his door at 0700 on the dot. Well, actually she’d been shadowing the window since 0654, but her double knock is timed with characteristic perfection. It’s a little annoying.

“Enter.”

“—” He waves off her report before the first sound.

“Sit, at ease.” She complies. Well, (he amends to his inner eye roll) as ‘eased’ as she ever gets.

“My After Action Report, Sir.”

“Good. How’d you like your testing?”

“I’ve appreciated it, Sir. Thank you for taking the time.” Not that there was much of it, they both knew. The good captain could play a cadet as well as he could fake a trainer, but she was no ivory tower. _Somehow. Don’t they have those at Oxford?_

Anyway. “…But…”

Her jaw clinches.

“ _Captain_ , I do not intend to prod my 2IC for the truth.”

“Sir, permission to—”

“ _Speak_.” He’s not exclamatory, but his anger is significantly less than he feigns. And that mostly from the Initial Feedback forms that he’d crunched through after dismissing her last night.

“I get the impression your disillusionment with me extends beyond your feedback. I’d like to know what it is in full.” Or maybe she wasn’t just faking it.

“Why?”

Still, he couldn’t totally blame her: the SGC's first attempt at ops “normal” had scared away more than its fair share of veterans—three tortured POWs, two soldiers ‘off the reservation’, one dead host, and a freaking partridge in a pear tree. _And DC still wants flagship standup in three weeks. _Carter was still here, which said something. If what it said was he’d needed to cram a 28-year-old female Rhodes Scholar through a 10-day assessment course in under 60 hours, 200 feet below a freaking radar station, then so be it. _Apparently._

“So I can change it, Sir.” It’s straight, not terse. He examines her. She’s locked above the horizon, despite the fact that he can almost hear her heartbeat from across the desk. And yet he can’t force in onto her face. _Better._ Far more squared away than anyone should look after the last week. After her last week.

“And how long’s your lessons' list?”

“57 total, Sir.”

“But you don’t think that reflects my problem with you.”

She flinches again. Invisible—it’s inches below her skin—but this is his job, after all. _Come on, Captain. Kick me._

“No, Sir. I don’t.”

“And yet you _still_ want this job?”

She hesitates. _Damnit, Carter._

“I want you to want me to have this job, Sir.”

He grimaces despite appreciating the answer. She’s trusts him, maybe too much. _And herself far too little._ He’d seen it from the get, that somewhere under that chip on her shoulder was metric ton of uncertainty over the difference between trust and self-inflation. What he hadn’t known in that first briefing was how badly he’d want whatever bastard put in there. And that’s a problem.

He drills into her eyes. A lot of problems. Far more potential. Too much of either? _Last chance, Colonel._

 

Somewhere, somehow, he knows this is the call of his lifetime.


	5. The Call of a Lifetime

_Somewhere, somehow, he knows this is the call of his lifetime._

He exhales. “You have far too much left to learn in the face of this war.” And maybe he’s not ready for it. _Make the team that’ll save the world, Jack. No pressure._

She breathes a beat. “I understand, Sir.” Her desperation is already sucked back into her diaphragm. “…But I’d like to know why you think that makes me different.”

He almost cackles. _Better._ So that’s in there.

“You’ve been a liability, Captain.”

He watches her sucks in another breath, struggling for composure. It slips. “I understand, Sir. That will not happen again.”

 _Worse._ Damnit. _It's_ _butterbar mode, Jack. Maybe if you hadn't been treating her like a 2nd Lieutenant, she wouldn't be acting like one._ But would she really step up?

 

He’s surprised he thinks it such a stupid question.

“Captain, you cannot promise me that.”

“Sir—”

“No.” She’s silences, immediately ‘at eased’ ten degrees above the horizon. He sighs. _Go with your gut._ “No, Captain, you can’t promise me that because it wasn’t your fault.” Her pupils absorb the unexecuted blink. “It was mine.”

 

Her eyes almost jump to him before locking back in. “You’re at ease, Captain.”

He refuses to continue until she relaxes in her duty uniform and meets his no longer feigning eyes.

“My deputy really doesn’t need to sit like a cadet in my own office.” Broken from attention, she doesn’t absorb the shock as well as she’d like. He wishes she wouldn’t try.

“Carter…” He stands and she’s on her feet almost before him. He smiles, trying to loosen the atmosphere. Not that he’s made that easy for himself. _Instructor to CO in six seconds flat._

He shoots her the smile and tries to ignore the shimmer inside him at her response. “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

 

He gives her a second to process, which per usual she takes about half of. “You’re keeping me?” _Seven of 26 trained operators are dead, and you’re keeping me?_

He can sympathize, earnestly. The captain that’d bounced her hand of the event horizon wasn’t the one that’d saved their asses days later, and certainly not the one who’d been assaulted last week. “Captain, the team this planet needs, it doesn’t exist yet. I think you’re the best 2IC to get it there.” He catches her gaze firmly, waiting.

Eyebrows. _Transition, Captain._

Eyebrows. _Sir?_

Stern. _I mean it. We’ve got work to do._

Nod. _Yes, Sir._

Tilt. _You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that._

_Buck up._

_Yes, Sir._ More confident. He needs her full story. “Prove me right.”

Smile. _Stopit._ “First order of business—” She snaps in, waiting. “…Zeroth order of business: Stop that.”

“Sir?”

“Smile or something. You’re freaking me out.”

She tucks her chin on her dimpled smile. It’d do. _Stopit._ “Sorry, Sir. First order?” She quells it quickly. _Too bad. Shut up._

“First order. We need a new SOP. Lots of ‘em, probably. First contact feasts, overnights, blah. …You’re drafting it.”

Her eyebrows jump. _Not cute. Notcute. Notcute._ “Yes, Sir.”

“Hammond wants a full CPI list by Friday. I’m sure you’ve got a bunch rolling around in your head. Give me them and the P4X-blahblah SOP by Wednesday.” [Continuous Process Improvement]

“Yes, Sir.”

 _Jeez, for an astrophysicist_ “Captain, I know your vocabulary is larger than that. Most of the _words_ in your vocabulary are longer than that.”

She smiles again. “Sorry, Colonel.” He gives her a bright look he can’t bring himself to regret. “I’ve…deliberated a number of albeit-embryonic CPI prospects.”

“ ‘Embryonic?’ ”

She shrugs. And just about dissects him for his reaction to it.

“It was a joke, Captain. I _like_ jokes.” She dimples. “…Not a particularly good one, but I assume you’ll CPI that as well.”

It takes her a minute.

 

They’d be ok.


End file.
